HTC One S with Snapdragon S3 1.7GHz processor spotted

Earlier today, I managed to get hold of the variant model of the HTC One S which will be sold in select countries around the world (Europe and Asia, especially), where it will come with the Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 1.7GHz processor instead of the Snapdragon S4 1.5GHz processor. Of course, there is the general perception that the S3 is not going to perform as well as the S4 despite having 200MHz more juice, and some others are concerned about the additional heat generated because of a higher clock speed. When I approached Mr. Justin Zhang, Head of Product Portfolio, South Asia, about that potential banana skin, he agreed that it is a perception issue, and approximately “10%” of additional heat or so will not matter too much in the hand of the user. Read on after the jump about the micro arc oxidation unibody chipping issue as well as performance details of the HTC One S.

Not only that, there is also the micro arc oxidation unibody chipping issue that seem to have plagued the 1.5GHz models which led to HTC announcing a 1-for-1 exchange. Mr. Zhang duly noted that this chipping problem is no longer an issue as they have made the necessary amendments to the production line, so much so that there is no longer any cause for a chipping problem. The law of cause and effect comes in then – if there is no cause for chipping, there definitely will not need to have an “effect”, which is to replace the handset, right?

Mr. Zhang also noted that the use of the Snapdragon S3 1.7GHz processor will be able to deliver comparable performance to that of a Snapdragon S4 1.5GHz processor, at least according to their in-house benchmarks. Having a dual production line is sort of an “insurance policy” on HTC’s side, where he hopes it will not end up being a perception issue among potential customers. What do you think – would you rather get the S4 powered HTC One S, or the model which runs on the S3 1.7GHz processor?